


When I See You

by chemm80



Category: Generation Kill, Justified
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 20:04:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chemm80/pseuds/chemm80
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for <a href="http://intoabar.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://intoabar.livejournal.com/"><b>intoabar</b></a>. Thanks to <a href="http://sylvanwitch.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://sylvanwitch.livejournal.com/"></a><b>sylvanwitch</b> for the once-over.</p>
    </blockquote>





	When I See You

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://intoabar.livejournal.com/profile)[**intoabar**](http://intoabar.livejournal.com/). Thanks to [](http://sylvanwitch.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://sylvanwitch.livejournal.com/)**sylvanwitch** for the once-over.

Nate swirls the scotch in his glass and wonders why he thought this was a good idea. This crowded bar is…not what he needs. Then he remembers the too-quiet house, the walls oppressive despite—or because of—the emptiness of its interior. He couldn't stay there; the place felt hollow, all but echoing with it. Or maybe that's just him.

Fucking Brad. It's at once an epithet and a concise description of his current situation. Maybe. Except that he doesn't know if he's actually fucking Brad, as in, they're pursuing any kind of ongoing relationship, or if last night was a one-time thing, some sort of off-to-war-I-could-die-tomorrow scenario in which Nate is supposed to play the weepy-eyed sweetheart Brad left behind.

_Jesus_ , he's pathetic. He's about to just down the rest of his drink and get out of there when a woman slides onto the barstool next to him. The motion requires her to invade his space, brushing against his thigh in the process because there's no room to do otherwise, even though she isn't really very large at all. Nate gives a small nod of acknowledgment of her quiet apology and catalogs her appearance out of habit born of training: black hair pulled back into a tight, businesslike bun, nondescript power pantsuit, and the bulge of a gun under her jacket.

Maybe it's the thought that there is almost certainly an officer of the law sitting next to him, or maybe it's something else entirely, but Nate decides against slamming back the rest of his whiskey and takes a more moderate pull instead.

"You're way too pretty to be here alone," the woman says without preamble.

Nate's focus snaps to her face, slightly startled that she's speaking to him at all. He knows even before he meets her studying gaze that she's not flirting with him. She's just making an observation, clinical, like he's the subject of an investigation.

"Thanks?" he says, with a crooked smile.

She smiles back and meets his eyes, not the least discomfited.

"Besides, it's been my experience that Marines run in packs."

I'm not really one of them anymore, he thinks, but he can't say it aloud. It'll never be true anyway. He'll always be a Marine, even if he was never of the precise species she seems to have in mind.

"Loud, rambunctious packs," she continues. Nate has to grin wider at that, memories of his platoon crowding in.

"That obvious, huh?"

Her answering head tilt is noncommittal but clear enough. Camp Pendleton is a stone's throw away; it's not a stretch, and he hasn't been out of the Corps nearly long enough for his high and tight to grow out. God knows how long it'll take for him to stop thinking of himself as Lieutenant Fick, or preferably, just "LT". Captain Fick hadn't existed long enough for the title to really stick.

She eyes him for another moment, then says quietly, "Thank you for your service."

Nate's heard it before, of course, but there's something in her eyes, some added measure of sincerity, a wistful quality that makes the sentiment seem more personal than usual somehow. His throat tightens with emotion. He nods in acknowledgement but inside he's shaking his head at himself. When did he start wearing his feelings so close to the surface?

"Rachel Brooks," she says, offering her hand. Nate takes it and answers with his name, no rank, and they settle into an easy back and forth.

Nate doesn't know how much time passes as she buys him another drink and keeps him talking, asking him about his unit, his deployments, where he's from. The crowd has thinned in the ebb of happy hour and the rhythm of their two voices and the warm haze of the alcohol are comforting, comfortable, and about a hundred times more preferable than his empty house.

Or they are until she takes a sharp conversational left turn worthy of a fucking SERE instructor.

"So, you're not here to party, not here to pick anybody up, and you don't strike me as the lone wolf type. Who is it that you're trying to drink away, Nate?"

The denial is there on the tip of his tongue, but the image of Brad the last time he saw him intrudes: Brad sitting on the edge of Nate's bed—the bed they'd just thoroughly wrecked, the one where Nate still lay naked—the long line of Brad's gorgeous bare back bowed against Nate as he tied his shoes and calmly announced that they were deploying again, and soon. Nate's men, and his… and Brad, leaving for Iraq again. Without him.

The image dams the words he might have spoken. He feels Rachel's eyes on him, but he has no idea what to say, almost as sucker-punched now as he was then.

"He's…," he starts, but since he doesn't have a fucking clue what Brad actually is right now, at least not when it comes to them, he has to stop there. "It's complicated," he finally finishes helplessly.

Rachel raises one eyebrow slightly, seemingly at the gender of the pronoun, then nods, a little bitterness showing around the edges of her small smile.

"It always is."

It hasn't been, actually, in Nate's experience, but then he's never known anyone remotely like Brad Colbert before. Which is the problem in a nutshell, really.

He doesn't say anything else, and she's quiet for a moment or two, finishing her drink. When she's done she lays some cash on the bar and stands as if to go.

"Well, Nate, I'm guessing you'll figure it out. The Marines always get their man, after all."

"Isn't that the Mounties?" he asks, not fighting the grin.

Humor sparkles in her eyes.

"Maybe. You telling me a bunch of red coat-wearing Canadian pussies can do better than a Recon Marine?"

"Bite your tongue, woman," Nate says, chuckling, and the laugh seems to shake something loose from its tight and painful grip on his chest. He takes a deep, freeing breath for what feels like the first time in the last week.

"Thanks for the drink," he says, giving her a look that he hopes conveys his thanks for the rest, too.

Rachel just smiles that self-possessed smile again and turns to go. She pauses and puts a warm hand on his shoulder.

"Semper fi, Marine," she says.

Nate nods as she walks away. _Semper fi._ That's how it's supposed to work, Nate thinks, but he's pretty sure they're not there yet. _Don't get ahead of yourself, Fick._

He knocks back the last swallow of his drink and goes home to try to get some rest. He has some recon to do.


End file.
